


Another Day

by 3_Patch_Problem_Child



Series: A New Road [4]
Category: Dogma (1999), Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Cannon Compliant through SPN Season 4:06 "Yellow Fever", Child Neglect, Dirty Talk, Drunk Castiel, Drunk Dean Winchester, Fluffy Porn, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, John Winchester is not a model parent, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Porn With Plot, Romance, Shameless borrowing of a character from another fandom, Skee Ball, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:28:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5046778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3_Patch_Problem_Child/pseuds/3_Patch_Problem_Child
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the fourth part of a 12-part SPN series, A New Road. The boys have done as much soul searching as they can muster and are on their way to Bobby to figure out what comes next for them now that God has seen fit to let them off the hook. Here begins my descent into porn with feelings and the shameless use of another fandom (Dogma). This was written well before the Metatron came into the SPN-verse. </p><p>Thank you all for the Con-crit, kudos, and comments!   Please remember the con-crit, kudos, and comments you leave here will echo in eternity. </p><p>TRIGGER WARNING: References to past child abuse and neglect. John Winchester is not a model parent, the episode is told in flashback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love & Eternal Fire

Greasy spoon, Nebraska, USA. Dusk. Another Day.  
  
Sam hunches over his lap top, while Dean sips at a cup of bitter coffee that he is sure was brewed before the Impala rolled off the line brand new. He resists the urge to brush the lock of chestnut hair that has fallen in Sam’s eyes away because, lover or no, that level of PDA would surely get them both road-hauled in this Podunk town.  
  
“Dude, staring.” Sam chuckles, not even looking up from the screen.  
  
Dean’s eyes snap back to the speckled Formica table-top and he sighs, examining his knuckles, still scraped raw and bruised from his explosion three days ago in Indiana. Three days, to Dean it feels like a million years since he and Sammy first made love, confessed their sins and felt the dawn of a new life, like God had finally shifted his burdensome gaze away from the Winchesters. Dean is impatient to check into the hotel room, impatient to feel the warmth of Sam’s skin beneath his hands.  
  
“Boys, you finished up or do you want some desert? We have blackberry pie and peach cobbler.” The waitress, a five foot-nothing shank of bone and dirty blonde hair, peels her lips back into what Sam interprets as an attempt at pleasantry. Despite the poverty-line dental work, the nicotine stains, and the worn sallow skin, her expression is genuine and she blushes like an ingénue when Dean unleashes the full measure of his brilliant smile in her direction.  
  
“Perhaps a piece of that pie to go sweetheart; keep the change. Oh, can you point us in the direction of a hotel and a place we can grab a beer, maybe shoot some pool?” Dean winks and hands the waitress a twenty dollar bill for the check. Sam is reasonably sure the poor girl is going to faint dead on the spot. Dean Winchester charm, it’s an immutable law of the universe, like gravity.  
  
“The Goldenrod is just about three miles down and to the left. Manny’s is right across the street, they have…uh…they have onion blossoms and a pool table.” The waitress stutters, pocketing the bill and backing away as if by turning, she will lose sight of the first shaft of sunlight that has managed to break through the clouds and shine on this greasy donut hood of a town. Sam knows how she feels, it’s hardly fair.  
  
“Dean equals M-C squared.” Sam mutters and shuts the lap top.  
  
“What Sammy?” Dean asks, lips quirked into a half-cocked smile that causes a flare of heat to radiate from Sam’s chest to his groin.  
  
They gather their belongings and head out to the Impala. Dean slides behind the steering wheel and coaxes his baby to life. As soon as they are on the road, Sam’s hand comes to rest on Dean’s thigh, Dean reaches down and turns Sam’s hand upwards, weaves their fingers together and strokes Sam’s wrist with his thumb. They have driven over 1400 miles like this, and could drive 10,000 more knowing the other is no farther than an arm’s length away.  
  
When they get to the hotel, Sam registers as Dean parks and grabs their duffels from the trunk. Sam lopes across the parking lot toward Dean and Dean resists the urge to fall to his knees and thank whatever God is out there for this moment, for the privilege of watching his lover, his only family, walk toward him in the fading light, instead of walking away.  
  
A half-hour later, salt lines laid, Dean paws through his bag looking for a clean shirt while Sam showers off the weariness of a three day drive. Dean is lost in the memory of the weight of Sam’s head resting on his chest while he sleeps, when Sam’s hands slide against his skin, one hand’s fingers finding a nipple and rolling the soft nub under a thumb until it hardens, the other pushes Dean backwards, pressing him against Sam's naked hardness. Dean’s skin crackles under Sam’s hands like heat lightening flashing across the sky on a humid August night.  
  
“Dean, I need you.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and he nips and licks at the soft spot beneath Dean’s ear. Dean groans and spins in Sam’s arms, devouring Sam’s mouth. Sam answers by sucking Dean’s tongue, aching for release.  
  
“How much?” Dean growls and deftly maneuvers Sam onto the bed, the hotel comforter scratches against Sam’s bare skin. He pulls Dean between his open legs and snakes his tongue around Dean’s navel while his hands roam over the expanse of Dean's strong, supple back. Dean watches, awe-struck at the ripple of sinew under the flesh of Sam’s sun-kissed skin. Dean backs up a step. Sam moans in protest.  
  
“On no Sammy,” He clucks his tongue, leaning against the press-board and laminate hotel dresser, “No Sammy, you need to show me how much.” A broad smile breaks across Dean’s face, his eyes dark with passion.  
  
“What more do you want?" Sam whines, like a child being denied his favorite toy.  
  
“Do you trust me?”  
  
“Yes.” And Sam does, with his body, with his life, and with his love.  
  
“Lay down and do what I ask, I want to watch you Sammy, I want to you to follow my voice over the edge, and then I will fill you, make love to you and remind you that you are and always will be mine.”  
  
“Dean…” Sam doesn't know which is more arousing, more commanding, the gravel and whiskey tenor of Dean's voice or the strange language dripping from his lover's tongue.  
  
"Christo" Sam whispers and Dean raises an eyebrow and grins.  
  
"Nope, not possessed, just in love. Now lie down." Comforted and secure Sam lies down and Dean strolls over to the side of the bed and lies next to Sam, running his fingers through Sam’s hair.  
  
“Shut your eyes." Sam shuts his eyes, reluctant to relinquish his visual connection with Dean. Dean's hand covers his own and guides it across his chest, traveling a lazy, meandering path toward the straining heat growing between his thighs.  
  
Dean, careful not to brush Sam's body with his own hands, folds Sam's fingers around the source of Sam's own passion, steel wrapped in silken skin, ruddy with lust.  
  
"Dean, Oh God, Dean please touch me."  
  
Dean leans his face into the crook of Sam’s neck and whispers against Sam's flushed, feverish skin, “No. Show me what you need Sam, it's so new, show me how you like to be touched. Do you like me to hold you gently, twisting and pulling when I reach for you? Can you imagine my tongue brushing against that heat between your fingers, licking your body, my teeth grazing the insides of your thigh, taking the length of you into my mouth, second, by slow, delicious second?"  
  
Dean bites and licks along Sam’s collar bone as Sam strokes himself to the sound of Dean's voice, Dean whispering every intimate thought he's had in the past few days, sharing every moment he wishes to live with Sam. The power of this new honesty, to no longer need to hide, lie, protect is dizzying and Dean experiences a sense of vertigo watching Sam pleasure himself. After several excruciating minutes, Sam back arches off the bed.  
  
Dean pulls Sam’s hand away leaving Sam’s body in stasis. “No, baby, not yet, it's not time.”  
  
Dean watches his lover buck and moan at the sudden absence of sensation and feels his own need building. Dean wonders how much longer he will be able to keep up this game, Sam has given himself over so completely to their lovemaking, to this playfulness that Dean doesn’t want it to end.  
  
Dean holds Sam's hand to his lips and sucks at Sam's fingers. Sam feels Dean's tongue and almost looses control. Sam opens his eyes and watches Dean's bee-stung lips, entranced. Dean guides Sam’s wet fingers to his quivering opening, and guides one of Sam’s fingers inside. Sam pants at his own tightness.  
  
“Dean, I need you inside me.” Sam pleads.  
  
“Almost," Dean glides a second finger of Sam's hand, then a third, inside Sam's own body. The sweet sensation of fullness coupled with the heady experience of releasing control is almost too much for Sam to bear.  
  
"Are you ready? Because I don’t want to hurt you Sammy, I want you ready for me, I want you to remember how I make you feel, so that even when I’m not with you, you’ll be able to feel me against you, inside you.”  
  
Sam’s desire is a flash burn that travels the length of his spine and erupts from his mouth, “Please Dean, please, need you, inside me, want you, love you.” The words tumble into the air and slip into Dean’s ear and Dean finally relents to the sweet urgency in his lover’s voice.  
  
Dean shifts on the bed, slipping his jeans and boxers off and kneels between Sam’s thighs. He gently pulls Sam’s hand away and licks a circle around his puckered rose. Sam is past any coherent attempt at language and pushes toward the wetness and pressure of Dean’s tongue. Dean uses his own hand to ensure that he is slick enough and crosses the threshold of Sam's body marveling at the expression of need on Sam's face.  
  
“Too much?” Dean is bordering incoherent himself, but pulls back from the edge to make sure that Sam is not in pain.  
  
As an answer, Sam presses his long arms against the head board and slams his body onto Dean’s. Dean arches into the onslaught.  
  
“Sammy, Sammy look at me.” Sam’s eyes flash open, a well of need, desire, and trust that sends Dean hurtling toward orgasm. Dean pulls almost all the way out and stops, “I love you Sammy, you're mine, you always will be, there will never be anyone but you.” And he grinds himself into Sam again.  
  
Sam screams his name as Dean brushes against that sweet luscious spot deep inside him. As Dean is thrusting into him, Sam grabs Dean’s hand from his hips and wraps it around his erection, reveling in the calloused firmness and warmth of Dean's grip, until he finally bursts, bathing their hands in his passion.  
  
The pressure from Sam’s orgasm draws Dean over and his release is an explosion of creation, a release that sends his body into involuntary convulsions of pleasure, until he collapses forward onto Sam’s chest, panting and covering Sam’s face in tender kisses.  
  
Dean eases himself from Sam and goes into the bathroom, returning with a towel to clean them both. They stare into the other’s eyes, the power of their love-making beyond any words either can offer. Sam strokes Dean’s face, his happiness so complete that tears well up in his eyes.  
  
“Dean…”  
  
“What Sammy?”  
  
“I will never leave you. I love you.”  
  
“I know, and I love you.” The crazy thing is that he does know, for the first time in his life, Dean is as certain of this as he is of the smell of gun oil and sweat on his own skin.  
  
“Sammy?”  
  
“Yes, love?”  
  
“Didn’t that waitress say that they served onion blossoms at that bar across the street?”  
  
*****  
  
Ruby leans against a fence watching the Winchester’s room from across the parking lot. She hears Sam’s desperate, pleading cry and snickers to herself. This plan could not be going better, these two angst-ridden puppets will split apart like a rotten peach in her capable fist soon enough. Sam is already an addict that craves her blood as much as the disgusting warmth and comfort this meat suit offers. It took her days to track them to this town, and now she just needs to bide her time. From the sounds of it, they are at each other’s throats and it won’t be long until she can stoke the flames of their mutual distrust. All she needs to do is feed them this girl Anna, gain a measure of Dean’s trust and give unwitting vengeful Alastair his opening. Once this part of the plan is set in motion, Sam will turn in her hand like a key in a lock.  
  
Her mistress, Lilith will reward her with greatness; her name will be raised to the ears of her Lord. Lucifer will hear of a servant willing to offer everything. It is a plan that will free them and all of heaven will weep at its unfolding.  
  
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” An English drawl, lazy vowels with an airy hint of sarcasm whispers in her ear. Before Ruby can gasp, a pale hand clasps her forehead and she feels the force of her hundreds of years of life being drawn into the void. Her last thought before the consciousness that is “Ruby” is burned to nothingness is that an eternity in the furnace of hell could not compare to the torture of the heavenly fire searing her veins for this one unending second.  
  
Darkness. A parking lot in a tiny Nebraska town. There are only a few late model cars and one gleaming classic parked in front of a run down strip of rooms at the Goldenrod Motor Inn. Lonesome gusts of wind shake the bare branches of the surrounding trees like dry bones strung on a wire. A warm butter yellow light seeps out from behind the curtains of the Winchester’s room and pools on the cracked sidewalk. Sam’s and Dean’s laughter floats across the pavement, reaching the two figures standing side by side watching their door from the far curb.  
  
The one in the trench coat and tie speaks first, matter-of-fact, a rumpled soldier, a warrior, battle-worn from a fight that has raged for thousands of years. “You are here.”  
  
“Oh Castiel, you’re so dramatic. Don’t get your knickers in a twist; I’m not here to hurt anyone. We need to talk, and I figured you should be there to hear what God has to say about all this nonsense.”  
  
Castiel is curious; the being beside him is inconspicuous from a human’s perspective. The “man” in the black jacket and hooded sweatshirt is unassuming in his ordinariness. Only Castiel sees beyond the swaggering affectation, he feels the holy radiance emanating from every pore in this creature’s being.  
  
“Well then,” Castiel bows in deference, pointing to the Winchester’s hotel room door, “After you Metatron.”


	2. The Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings apply for this chapter! Enjoy!

“So?” Sam lounges on the spare hotel bed, picking at the stiff, polyester bedspread. He’s propped up on his elbows, waiting for Dean to finish dressing. Sam shakes his head, his hair still damp from the shower they shared after making love. Not the brightest idea for two lovers who become so easily immersed in each other that watching warm water sluice over one another’s skin results in an hour long detour and the depletion of the hot water tank. To be fair, distraction doesn’t take a lot these days; Sam finds it difficult to concentrate when he thinks of something as simple as Dean smiling. That gorgeous expression that spreads from his plump cupid bow of a mouth to his eyes, like sunrise spilling light across a field of wheat at dawn, illuminating and warming the landscape and melting the frost that has taken hold in the darkness. It has become as vital to Sam as his own breath, an expression that carries none of the burden of hell, none of the loss or betrayal of their earlier lives.  
  
“So what?” Dean dips his head, eyes of Baltic amber flecked with onyx focus intently on lacing his Wal-Mart special construction boots. Sam notices the heel separating from the leather and makes a mental note to pick up a new pair the next time they swing through a town with more than a Benjamin Franklin, a diner and a bar.  
  
“So what now?” He looks around the hotel room, same battered dresser, same five-channel TV screwed into the wall, same gilded wallpaper, the leaf pattern pocked and pitted in the places where previous guests had railed against whatever fortune drove them to stop in this no-name Nebraska town. Sam’s eyes trace the topography of history written in the walls of their hotel and he imagines Dean’s thighs and the marks of his self-loathing that he will carry for the remainder of his life, sure as he carries the imprint of Castiel’s hands on his shoulders. He wishes he could whisper the old wounds away like a monk sweeping the sands of a Mandala into the heart of God. Sam wants to give Dean a body unmarred by the burning palms of angels and the ministrations of self-hatred.  
  
“Now? Now, Sammy, we go across the street, order an onion blossom and shoot some pool, maybe get a little drunk…” Dean saunters over to Sam, hooks his index fingers through the belt loops of Sam’s blue-jeans and pulls him up from the bed. “Maybe come back here later, roll around, get frisky, sleep late, then lather, rinse, repeat. Haul ass up to Bobby’s for a few days and then who knows.” Dean leans in, his tongue flicking out and caressing the buttermilk soft skin above the collar of Sam’s shirt. “Sammy, we have to talk about all these layers, it’s not right hiding your gorgeous body under all this.” Dean’s hand snakes underneath the strata of clothing and starts to draw lazy figure eights across the planes of Sam’s chest.  
  
“Dude.” Sam blushes and pulls away, albeit reluctantly. There are decisions to be made and as appealing as onion blossoms, whiskey, and the prospect of naked writhing Dean are, it’s not going to get them any closer to making them. “I meant, what now? You know; keep hunting? Tell Bobby about us?” Dean grimaces and gulps air like a goldfish in a shattered bowl, “Not that we have to right way; God knows what he’ll do. Anyway, there are other, more pressing matters.”  
  
“Like?” Dean steps in toward Sam again and places a hand on either side of his brother’s slender hips, the contact isn’t necessary, but Sam’s tone exposes a host of troubles that both of them have been blissfully ignoring for the past several days. Touching Sammy staves off some of the anxiety that has been skulking in the back of Dean’s mind.  
  
“Like…” Sam pauses and places his palm against Dean’s cheek, softening his voice so as not to frighten his brother. “Like, I don’t think Lilith is going to care that we’ve had an epiphany. She’s still breaking seals and trying to spring Lucifer. I don’t even want to imagine what Urielle and Cas are going to do when they figure out what’s going on between us. And then there is Ruby,” Dean’s expression darkens “I know what needs to be done and I’m not arguing, I just think we need to think, you know…”  
  
“Ah…to be or not to be, that is the question, whether it be nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles…”  
  
The English drawl startles both of the men, Dean spins and in one fluid motion has pushed Sam behind him in a protective stance, his hand going to the small of his back where he has tucked his 9mm. When Dean sees Castiel his tension ebbs a little. At least it’s not Lilith or that hell-bitch Ruby although how they would have gotten through the salt and protective sigils is beyond Dean, but he wouldn’t put anything past those vultures. The brief surge of relief Dean feels is replaced with a whole new wave of taught, fractured nerves because this still might shape up to be a big ugly train-wreck of a situation, it’s not like he and Sam have been engaging in biblically sound behavior as of late.  
  
“And don’t I know it.” The stranger intones and Dean flushes scarlet with the realization that Castiel and his buddy probably had front row seats to the afternoon shower show. The stranger rolls his eyes and folds himself into one of the hotel’s rickety dining chairs in the Barbie-sized kitchenette. He runs finger over the surface of the table as if he expected the two men to be keeping themselves ensconced in far swankier digs than the Goldenrod Motor Inn.  
  
Castiel holds up a palm toward Sam and Dean and sits at the table to demonstrate that neither he nor his companion has come to fight.  
  
“Do not be afraid. Metatron brings you news  
  
Dean shrugs, “Least we can do is listen, right Sammy? I mean, if Ozzy and Harriet were going to do any smiting I have a feeling we’d be grease spots on the carpet already.” Only then does Dean notice that Sam is frozen, every muscle of his body a bowstring stretched to breaking.  
  
“The Metatron?” Sam stares at the “man” beside Castiel with a mixture of abject fear and unmitigated awe.  
  
“Yes” A delighted smile plays across his road-worn, handsome face. “It’s about time one of you knuckle-draggers recognized the name. No offense.”  
  
“Sammy,” Dean doesn’t take his eyes off their guests. “Who is this chuckle-head?”  
  
“None taken….Dean,” Sam swallows, his throat parched. “Metatron is the voice of God. As the scribe of Heaven, he accounts for each word that falls from the lips of the Creator.” Dean’s eyebrows knit together, Dean is a brilliant man, but research and ancient Hebraic cannon has never been his strong suit. Sam tries another tack. “According to Judaic mysticism he’s like the angelic version of Will Riker.”  
  
“Huh?...Ahh.” Dean’s eyes widen and he sits on the bed, dangling the 9MM between his knees. “So Cas, when did we rate a visit from the home office?”  
  
“Dean, please allow Metatron to speak, he will explain.” Castiel looks even more weary than usual and Dean’s sharp comeback about lapdogs and leashes dies on his tongue.  
  
“Shut up, all of you. Christ almighty, I’m tired dead tired of this nonsense. Especially you.” Metatron jabs a finger at Sam and Castiel winces. “You’ve been insufferable and almost impossible to keep alive, if it weren’t for the almighty wanting to see how this all shakes out, I’d have sorted you out months ago.” Dean snickers. “Oh, I wouldn’t laugh too loud if I were you, Mr. Suffer-in-Silence, what do you think has been driving him over the edge for the past eight months.” Dean’s jaw snaps shut.  
  
Metatron pauses, straightening his coat and rising to stand, a pair of snow-white wings, feathered and pure as the dove that returned to Noah baring the branch and a promise of land, grow and spread from his body. “I am the Metatron, the Voice of the Almighty God and I bring to you a message…”


	3. Skee Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: References to past child abuse and neglect. John Winchester is not portrayed as an ideal parent.

“So, skee ball?” Sam asks Metatron as Dean struts up to the bar to grab another round of tequila shooters. Sam is still shell-shocked, Lilith was never going to come for them again, Ruby was d-e-a-d dead, and the seals were restored. Sam has thousands of questions and the only thing he can really wrap his head around is this one. “God likes to play skee ball?”

“Likes to play?” Metatron huffs out an exasperated sigh, “She positively loves it, says its simple, one of the things you folks have gotten right, you know, a perfect example of Grace in action.”

Metatron’s eyes sparkle in the low tell-me-no-lies lighting of Manny’s Roadhouse. After issuing the official, “you’re off the hook” proclamation and intimating that Zachariah and Urielle were going to be stationed in the heavenly equivalent of Siberia for the next few millennia Metatron insisted they come across the street for a drinks and the Winchester boys were never ones to turn down a celebration or free liquor. Manny’s bar is one of the drop-ceiling, peanut shelled dives that caters to locals and the passer-through brave enough to breach the gray steel door. Tonight only a few folks are out curled into the dark corners dousing old hurts in bourbon and greasy fried onions.

“A boardwalk game a metaphor for Grace? Come on, man, I don’t see it.”

“Obviously it’s been awhile since you’ve been to Jersey?” 

Metatron snaps his fingers and Sam finds himself standing in a bright arcade, seagulls shrieking, dipping out of the sky and on to the beach to comb for discarded bits of hot dogs and funnel cake. Warm salt air and the scent of fresh kettle corn tease at Sam’s childhood memories. 

Their dad was hunting a poltergeist in Atlantic City and didn’t need the boys because the job was simple and he was dead-sick of having them underfoot. Sam had been ten and Dean 14 and Dad had forbid them from leaving the pay-by-the-week rattrap they were holed up in. It was summer vacation, so there was no school and John didn’t have the excuse of classes to keep the boys occupied. Sam remembered that John was so eager to get to the poltergeist that he had almost knocked Sam into next week for begging to stop at the library. 

No books meant that after two days, Sam was sick of playing hearts and watching reruns of Night Court on the crap-ass hotel TV and begged Dean to take him to see the ocean. Dean relented when Sam had turned his thousand-watt puppy dog stare in Dean’s direction and they had snuck out to the boardwalk. The money they had was for food and had to stretch for a week, so they had nothing to play the games but that didn’t quell Sam’s fascination with the spectacle of glitz and flash. They skipped rocks at the ocean’s edge and then sauntered along the boardwalk listening to kids their own age twitter about who liked who at school and beg their parents for money to ride the Ferris wheel or play Shark Hunter. Sam had watched a middle-aged soccer mom press a five dollar bill into her daughter’s hand and smile like a beauty queen as her daughter skipped off to giggle with a group of girls in front of the fortune teller’s booth. His gut wrenched remembering the look in Dean’s eyes, hungry and betrayed, straining, at the same time, toward that mother with a yearning that even Sam, at the age of ten, recognized as beat-down and broken hearted.

John had come back to the room to check up on them and grab a few winks and found the boys missing. He whipped Dean bloody with a strap for the transgression. That night a seedling of defiance and resentment had rooted in Sam’s belly as he listened to Dean whimper, the stiff hotel sheets rustling as Dean attempted to locate a comfortable position where his boxers and the bed linens wouldn’t stick to the wounds on his back side. Sam had crawled out of bed and in a rare moment of role-reversal, brought Dean a cool washcloth, pulled his boxers down, wincing at the crimson welts, and laid the cool cloth across Dean’s rump. He had stroked Dean’s hair until he fell asleep, offering up a silent prayer, begging for forgiveness, not able to find words for the ache and emptiness in his chest, wishing, as tears fell unbidden and unnoticed that his father had chastised him with the belt instead of Dean.

“She heard that, you know.” 

Sam looks up, tears threatening to overflow. “I…” He holds out his hands, palms up, an act of supplication, of prayer, and questioning. Why? If God knew, then why did Dean have to sleep on his stomach for a week? How insignificant must they have been that God never turned the rivers of fire and blood that twisted and wrecked their lives? Sam feels Dean’s blood wash over his wrists again, relives the terror of seeing the one person he would die for shredded and lifeless.

“Why us?” Sam feels the solid weight of a wooden ball drop into his outstretched hand and he looks into Metatron’s face the angel’s features awash in boundless compassion; an ancient and perfect love reflected in the well of his eternal eyes. 

“Bowl.”

“What?”

“Bowl.” Metatron points and to the skee ball lane in front of Sam and despite the unanswered questions, he stoops, winds up, he flicks his risk at the last moment before the release. He feels a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth at the hollow rumble and stutter of the ball rolling up the ramp, jumping the lip and landing in scuffed 30-point tube. Sam hears the metallic whir and three red boardwalk tickets appear from a slot to the left of the lane. Sam reaches for the next ball and continues to bowl, turn after turn, for the sheer joy of the sound and motion.


	4. Goodbye For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Alcohol use, drunk Dean and drunk Castiel.

Sam reaches for the next ball and finds himself sitting back at a table in Manny’s Roadhouse. Sam hears Dean’s exuberant whoop from the bar and sees Castiel slugging back a shooter.   
  
“Do you see,” Metatron cocks an eyebrow. “That delight you felt, the lightening of spirit in the moment when you understood what would save you, save Dean; that was faith, as solid and eternal as the weight of a red wooden ball.”   
  
“Sammy, you need to check this out, Cas is trying to hustle some local at pool, he’s had 15 tequila shooters and told the guy his name is Larry.” Dean’s is giddy, exuberant, and Sam can smell the tang of tequila hanging around his mouth from across the table. “Emo-boy, cheer up, if I get drunk enough, I’ll let you take advantage of me.” Dean swings toward Metatron and unleashes what he intends to be brilliant smile but turns out to be a goofy half-grin.   
  
“Hey, Meta…Meta…Voice-guy is it true you’re all angel in there? Cas says that’s why you can’t drink, you’re not riding some chump like a flesh pony…heh, heh…I said flesh pony.” Dean leans in and pinches Sam on the hip and leers at him with drunken frivolity.   
  
Cas’ voice rises above the Guns and Roses song screeching from the juke box, slurred and tight.“Please sir, Dean did mention that he would cover any losses I incurred from hitting those little balls with this odd stick.”   
  
“That’s my cue.” Dean lurches off the chair.  
  
“He’s cute, in a chipper serial killer kind of way.” Sam shrugs at Metatron in apology.  
  
“Well, Samuel Winchester.” Metatron stands. “I must be on my way. Good luck to you.”  
  
“Wait. I...but…I have so many questions, you can’t go yet.”   
  
“Funny, that’s what Mary said.” Metatron smirks. “No, I have to get Castiel’s vessel back to his family before he wrecks it.”   
  
“One question?”  
  
“One more.”  
  
“We’re good…right? Dean and I, we’re not…going to hell or anything?”  
  
Metatron places a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Yes, you’re good. No, you’re not going to hell. But please, attempt to keep that one from selling his soul again, it really has been bothersome.”  
  
“Will do. Will we see you again?”  
  
A sly grin breaks across Metatron’s face. “I think we may run into each other after a time."  
  
XXXX  
  
Sam and Dean stare at each other across the bench seat of the Impala and then look out to see the rusted sign for Singer's Salvage yard 10 yards from the car.   
  
“Sam?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“How did we get to South Dakota?”  
  
“Dude, this has been by far the weirdest week in the history of the Winchester family.”   
  
“No kidding.”   
  
“I love you, Dean.”  
  
Dean brushes his fingertips across Sam’s jaw, ecstatic and gloriously terrified of the new future that is stretched out before them.  
  
“I love you to Sammy.”   
  
“Dean?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Do you like skee ball?”  



End file.
